You must be a SPCR forum member and reside in the US or Canada. The company will only ship to the US and Canada at this time.

If you are eligible and wish to receive a sample, then:

1. Make a post in this thread stating you agree to test ICD7. You will edit that post later with the results of your testing.2. Email me (mikec at silentpcreview dot com) with "IC Diamond" as the subject line with only your name and shipping address in the body of the email.

This will be the place to post your benches, test, and results from your IC Diamond 7 Carat thermal compound you received.

Introduction

At Innovation Cooling we have done extensive tests on our own compound as well as all our competitors and I can say from our results that I have never tested a compound that performs better although a couple come close initially on thermal performance due to a more liquid, lower particle bulk loading. This enables a better wetting of the surface to fill imperfections in the adjoining surfaces. They look great after the first couple hundred hours but what happens after 1000 hours? or 2000 hours? It is well documented in numerous published papers that low viscosity TIMs are prone to bake out and pump out. Intel and others in the OEM market recommend particle bulk loadings above 90% to minimize these effects. While this increases reliability in the long run as it is harder to pump a solid than a liquid and performance is measurably impacted as many here will probably have experienced when using thermal pads, gels, phase change, tapes and other OEM type products.

With IC Diamond we believe we have an ideal combination of thermal performance and reliable performance. Our data on a one inch synthetic die with thermocouples on die and sink show only a 1.1C delta @ 100 W. In other words a mechanically thermal perfect contact between the two would only net an improvement of 1.1C @ 100W.

Every manufacturer has their own prescribed method of grease application and for this test I would use our method out of the gate and no other. The application method has been tested extensively by us and independently by over 127 forum users. Lines, grains of rice, razor film spreads, BB sized, ultrasonically spread with a vibrator, mixed with other pastes have all been tried. Our recommended application is what works. Application is simple and easy.

You may find heating it up a little bit makes it a lot easier to get out of the syringe and helps with the spreading so mount the heatsink ASAP after application to CPU.

If you have an HDT cooler you should try using the above method first and the method used for HDT coolers later if you wish to see which works best for you.

Make sure the Heatsink and CPUs are well cleaned using Isopropyl Alcohol 90%+ pure, Arcti Clean or something similar.

Data Required

I appreciate the effort here from all participating members. Any comments pro or con are welcome as well as any suggestions. There is no bad data in this test, it is what it is, just report the result.

The data we would like is:

"Before" test data prior to dismantling your system. Make sure all heatsinks and CPUs are clean, free from dust, securely mounted, etc. We would like good data.

1. Ambient temps to be taken at idle and load. 2. Idle and load temps obviously. Use a program like LINPACK, Prime95 or OCCT and set to max stress the CPU and allow to run for 2 hours. IC Diamond needs about 2 hours to settle in or cure. Under normal heat sink loads, temperature drops about a degree in that time period and only another 1/2 overnight, so 2 hours is a good point to take a reading. Use Core Temp or Real Temp as these seem to give the most accurate readings. Real Temp also shows the max temp each core reaches during the load test. If you use another program just note down which one. 3. Note initial comparison paste and any exceptional conditions as well as heat sink type. 4. PWM disabled so fan speed is constant for both tests. 5. Note your system specs and settings.

Remount with IC Diamond 7 Carat Thermal Compound and repeat as above.

Submit results for any TIMs you use as a comparison also so we can compare results.

Feel free to make any observations, comments or suggestions. We are trying to refine our message, application and problem troubleshooting so the information you supply to us is valuable to us and much appreciated.

That's basically it. You are pretty much on your own, whatever result you get is what it is. I may comment occasionally or suggest troubleshooting points but not much else. At the end of the exercise we will provide a chart of the results with links to the data for viewing and suggested corrections.

I heard about this TIM when it premiered and I've always wanted to try it. When will they ship out the syringes? I'm going to be moving soon, so if they're waiting for the full 100-name list before shipping I'll have to give my new address instead.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot the magic words. "I agree to test ICD7"

EDIT2: Email finally sent.

Last edited by PartEleven on Mon May 18, 2009 8:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thanks to Mike for setting up the giveaway for you people and thanks to those that agree to test as there is some work involved in mounting and remounting sinks I believe most will enjoy favorable results.

These beta test/giveaway's Besides introducing people to our product has provided us with much useful information. The application procedure was developed and defined by users on other giveaway's as well as isolating and troubleshooting problems in mounting/thermal performance and has been of great assistance in refining our marketing message.

I expect a good run here as reading over the forum it looks to be a most professional crew here.

You got that right, working with heatsinks, taking them on and off is a pain, but looking at the program (SpeedFan for me) and seeing those lower temps (even if it is by just 1 degrees) just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. (Funny, because the feeling inside of your is the inverse temperature of the processor...warm and fuzzy inside me, cool CPU, warm CPU, not warm and fuzzy inside me)

Adjusting for increased ambient temperature in the after measurement gives a 3-4 degree decrease in CPU temperature with IC Diamond.

Note: I probably did not use as much IC diamond as called for in the instructions, which seem to be targeted at CPUs with larger cores or heat spreaders. The CPU core is only about 7mm by 10mm, so a 5mm glob seemed excessive for this CPU.

Comments:
IC Diamond is stickier than regular heatsink grease - I didn't have problems getting it out of the tube (working on a warm day), but when applying it to the CPU die, it tended to form stringers that got on other parts of the CPU. (In consistency more like a slightly stringy glue than like a grease). So it was a little harder to apply (not a big deal, just behaved a little differently than expected).

[They should run a grammar checker on the IC Diamond web site. (Saw at least one double word.)]

Last edited by scdr on Sun Jun 14, 2009 10:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

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